Month: June 2013

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Gold medal to professor Lena Kautsky

Vice-chancellor of the University of Stockholm has decided to distribute the Stockholm University gold medal of the 8th size in ribbon to three persons who in various ways have promoted the University’s activities.

One of these is the BalticSeaWeed blog’s very own Professor Lena Kautsky.

The motivation reads as follows:
“Lena Kautsky, professor of marine ecological botany, is awarded Stockholm University gold medal of size 8 in ribbon for her deep involvement in marine research and education at Stockholm University, in national collaboration on marine environmental issues and sharing of knowledge to the public and decision makers. Her leadership of the Stockholm Marine Research Centre and Asko Laboratory has been a decisive part in the fundamental work resulting in Stockholm University’s new Baltic Sea Centre. ”

The medals will be awarded at the installation ceremony held at City Hall on September 27th.

The BalticSeaWeed blog, swelling with pride, will of course post pictures from the ceremony.

See also university’s website (in Swedish only).

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Seaweed course in Denmark

The week has been spent in Denmark, on a full Sunday to Sunday course to learn more about macroalgae.
With a schedule so full you can hardly fit it to a paper, the hopes and expectations to become a real seaweed guru are high.
There are 11 PhD students partaking, all from different countries!
The course is arranged by Aarhus University, as you can see in their newsletter (sorry, only in Danish).

Our first day of the course, we went out to collect macroalgae in the field. We started at the pier next to Ebeltoft harbour, where the sun shone and it was lee on the inside where we were working. I took this years “first swim without a drysuit in Nordic waters”. It was a refreshing 16 degrees Celsius and I was in the water for about 10 minutes, collecting material. Here there were four Fucus species growing: Fucus spiralis, Fucus vesiculosus, Fucus evanescens and Fucus serratus. Jackpot!

Lots of seaweed!

Lots of seaweed!

After a field lunch of sandwiches, we headed north, to Grenaa. Here, the Marine Home Guard and their boat took us out on Kattegat! What a luxury! This is a new collaboration between the Home Guard and Aarhus University, so the Danish TV was out and filmed us. Click here and fast forward to 1:19 into the clip and there we are.

Monday evening and Tuesday was spent going through the collected material to determine the different species and look at their different physiological structures.
On Wednesday, we tried to reproduce sugar kelp ( Saccharina latissima ) by getting them to release spores. It didn’t quite go as planned, so we took some good old bladderwrack and got it to release eggs and sperm instead.

On Thursday, we went to Algcenter Grenaa and had a look around. Pictures from our visit you can see the Algcenter website

Anette Bruhn show us how they cultivate sugarkelp at the Algcenter

Anette Bruhn show us how they cultivate sugarkelp at the Algcenter

We also got to visit the Kattegat Center, located just across the parking lot. This is one of Denmark’s many fine aquariums that have long been on my wish-to-see list. It was just as good, if not better, as I had expected. There was even an exhibition of algae and their importance. It is totally worth a visit!

Friday and Saturday were devoted to compiling and analyzing all of our data, and then present it in four groups according to various themes (Taxonomy, Monitoring, Light and Cultivation).

Danish seaweed; red, brown and grøn

Danish seaweed; red, brown and grøn

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Seaweed project within BalticSea 2020

Anyone who is interested in the Baltic Sea might have heard of Baltic Sea 2020 Foundation.
Baltic Sea 2020 is a foundation founded by Bjorn Carlson through a donation of 500 million SEK (55 million EUR). The Baltic Sea 2020 Foundation’s assets shouldfund projects that are action-oriented, innovative and helps to improve the knowledge of the Baltic Sea continuously until 2020. The BalticSea 2020 Foundation began its work in 2006 and has to date initiated more than 70 projects, of which 25 are ongoing.

One of these projects is about trying to re-establish bladderwrack inside Björnöfjärden, a bay outside Stockholm. Björnöfjärden is heavily eutrophicated and the water is quite turbid with particles that prevents the light from penetrating. It quickly becomes dark below the surface, so that only a few stands of seaweed survive here. Observant locals have informed us that there was plenty of seaweed in the Björnöfjärd in the past, however.

So, seaweed enthusiasts to the rescue!

Susanne Qvarfordt is ready to establish bladderwrack.

Susanne Qvarfordt is ready to establish bladderwrack.

Susanne Qvarfordt from the environment surveillance company Sveriges Vattenekologer has initiated a project that will examine what factors might prevent the seaweed population from re-establishing in Björnöfjärden.
In addition, she asked the BalticSeaWeed blog to help with our expertise!

So, during the first days of June, we collected fertile tips of bladderwrack. These were sexed (we cut the receptacles and see if they are male or female), so that we would get an appropriate ratio of males and females at each site.

Sexing seaweed is best done with a scalpell and a magnifying glass.

Sexing seaweed is best done with a scalpell and a magnifying glass.

The bladderwrack were made into small beautiful fertile bouquets which were then attached to a grid. These will be placed in the water, floating over a number of concrete plates, and hopefully make new small seaweed babies that can attach itself to the plates.

All is ready for a baby boom!

All is ready for a baby boom!

So, now we have placed three grids in Björnöfjärden and three in nearby Fjällsviks Bay, to see if any of the other actions carried out in Björnöfjärden will affect the seaweeds ability to reproduce.
So, keep your fingers crossed that no one gets caught with their anchor or fish tackle in our beautiful grids, and hope for calm weather at Midsummer full moon so that there will be many wee ones.

Placing a seaweed grid with buoys.

Placing a seaweed grid with buoys.